Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has described as dubious the recent “consent judgement” passed by the federal high court in which the indebtedness of Shell was drastically reviewed downwards to N45.7 billion, adding that it is an attempt to rip-off of the community by Shell.
ERA/FoEN added that it is an orchestratration strategy by Shell to take communities through long harrowing legal obstacles to deny them justice.
Executive Director of ERA/FoEN, Dr. Godwin Uyi 0jo, while disclosing this in a statement made available to INFO DAILY shortly after the general meeting of the organiztion held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, lamented that it took Shell good 30 years before the company finally bow to the will of the people and the dictates of justice.
READ ALSO: N81.9bn Compensation: ERA/FoEN Wants ExxonMobil To Obey Court Judgement
According to him, it is only when Shell is cornered as in the present case that they turn around and make an offer for full and final settlement of all claims by communities without admitting any wrongdoing.
While stating that ERA/FoEN welcomed the judgement and Shell readiness to compensate the comminity (Ejama-Ebubu in Eleme local Government Area of Rivers State) over $110 million or N45.7 billion naira as full and final settlement for an oil spill that occurred in the area, the Executive Director applauded the people of Ejama-Ebubu community for their steadfastness in the pursuit of justice, remediation and restoration of their destroyed environment as well as the well-deserved compensation for the losses they have suffered.
Dr. Ojo who recalled how Shell’s facilities, in 1970, polluted the community’s environment and thereby causing oil spill, said Shell neither clean, restore, nor compensated the community for the losses they had suffered as a result of the spill until now.
“But in 1991, the community being dissatisfied with the failure of Shell to remediate and restore their environment filed a case before the Nigeria’s Federal High Court of justice.
READ ALSO: Just In: Netherlands Court Held Shell Liable For Oil Spill In N’Delta, Orders Compensation, ERA/FoEN Lauds Judgement
“Further to this legal action, in 2010 the federal high court awarded compensation to the community in the sum of N17 billion naira but Shell in its usual intransigence vigorously objected to paying the compensation awarded by the court and proceeded to drag out the case.
“In November 2020 the supreme court rejected Shell’s last ditch bid to set aside the 2010 compensation award. This judgement debt of N17 billion, had after 11 years of Shell’s intransigence ballooned to N180 billion,” he said.
He continues, “This same scenario played out in the case of Saro-Wiwa and other vs Shell in New York in 2009, Bodo vs Shell at the industrial court in London 2016. Shell’s refusal to accept responsibility implies that the company is yet to learn any lesson from their wanton destruction of the environment and therefore unwilling to make changes to their clean-up operations from their frequent oil spills and destruction of livelihoods.”
On his part in the statement, Mike Karikpo, Director of Programs, ERA/FoEN, described the judgement as “bitter-sweet victory as the agreed compensation payout by Shell is merely a fraction of what the company owes the Ejama-Ebubu community.
“Shell has gotten away again with shortchanging the people of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria,” he stated.
They, therefore, called on communities in the Niger Delta region impacted by “reckless oil extraction” to demand full accountability from every oil company.
READ ALSO: Proposed Sales Of Shell’s Assets:Environment Rights Organistion Wants Govt, CSOs Monitor Process
ERA/FoEN also emphasised the need to clean oil impacted ecosystems across the country as a way of restoring and compensating communities and individuals whose livelihoods were impacted even as the short-lived age of oil comes to an end.